Ghoster
by Samalander
Summary: Have you ever wondered how, in between robbing banks, building weapons of mass destruction, taking hostages and getting their asses kicked by superheroes, Villans have time to get anything done? Meet Wyatt Blank, the ghoster.
1. Chapter One

  
  
(Author's Note, Disclaimer, and other assorted nonsense: I do not own the Teen Titans or anything affiliated with DC comics or any other various things that are guarded by lawyers and vicious dogs. I do, however, hold the rights to Wyatt Blank. Let it be known that Wyatt's character is _based_ on a character (who is seldom seen) in Breath of Fire IV. Unless you've played the game at least twice you probably won't know who he is, so it doesn't matter anyway. Though I am an advocate of Slash, Yaoi, BDSM, and twinks, none of these will be featured in this fic. It is safe for all audiences.) 

**Chapter One**

The only thing that separated the small, nondescript boy from thousands of other small nondescript boys was the reference. 

He'd shown up in the clocktower exactly a day behind his letter-- to the minute-- and at least knew enough not to bother to knock. He was dressed in a longsleeve pullover and a tee shirt bearing the name of an indeterminate heavy metal band, tattered sneakers with laces forever coming untied, hems of his dirty jeans frayed. All he carried was a plain messenger bag that, for all the mysterious lumps in the fabric revealed, could be full of clothing or explosives or both. Someone might see him, but they would never remember him. In most places he moved without being really seen at all-- just another kid, on his way somewhere, heading home, one of thousands. 

Slade would have missed him completely if he hadn't nearly run into him. 

It took his mind the better part of a second to straighten out a jumble of confused thoughts and reactions and file them neatly in a row, as he was used to. With a clearer mind he remembered the letter of reccomendation he'd recieved the day before in the form of a badly smudged and travel-worn note that had been typed on a machine that apparently was not only running out of ink but missing several keys. It read, simply:   
  


**GOOD T WH T HE DOES.**

It was signed with an illegible scrawl, and there was no return address on the battered envelope, but one didn't survive long in Slade's business without knowing things. He knew who the letter was from, and what the boy was here for. He also knew-- though he didn't consider it important-- that the boy had travelled a long way to be here standing in the middle of Slade's clocktower this morning. 

On some unspoken cue, the boy silently handed Slade a scrap of paper, neatly folded in half. Slade tucked it away without looking at it. "I don't know if I can use you," he said, turning away to look up at the monitors displaying various parts of the city, all quiet and dark at this hour of the morning. "I do my own work." 

The boy said nothing. He stood waiting, face impassive, looking for all the world as if he were standing at a bus stop. Slade glanced at him, part of his mind weighing the advantages and disadvantanges of hiring someone like this boy. The other part, as always, was thinking of Robin. 

"Your previous... Employer sent you here?" 

"Yes." Even the boy's voice was forgettable. Monotone and serious, it seemed to come from the air around him rather than directly from his lips. 

"And where is he now?" 

There was a tiny flicker in the boy's eyes, almost too slight to see. "Atascadero Institute for the Criminally Insane." 

"I see." 

The boy elevated one eyebrow slightly. "They take good care of him. He supposed he'd have no need for my services in a place like that." 

"So he sent you to me. Did he say why?" 

"It's not my business to know why." 

Slade turned back to the monitors. "Exactly. In that case, I don't want to see you or hear you. You are not to talk to me. You will find your own lodgings. You will be paid weekly, in an amount determined by your performance. It is not negotiable." He paused to fix the boy in the one-eyed stare that had frozen the hearts of so many men. "I need not say that if you open your mouth outside of this building you will cease to exist. Do you understand?" 

The boy was already gone, vanished into the darkness. 

"Excellent," Slade said into the silence. 


	2. Chapter Two

  
  


**Chapter Two**

His name-- though no one, including himself, ever used it-- was Wyatt. He'd been born invisible. 

Oh, people could _see_ him, of course, but they tended to ignore him, and if he wasn't there, he may as well have never existed. He was the seventh child of John and Joan Blank. His mother had understandably died after the birth of her eleventh child, and so the children-- all boys-- were raised by John Blank and hurried into adulthood as soon as possible. Wyatt had left the family house when he was eleven, and no one ever knew he was gone. 

Despite being constantly ignored-- or perhaps because of it-- Wyatt was a very quiet, serious boy who did everything with a meticulous attention to detail. He learned quickly and was a quick and patient worker, and because of that, he'd been hired at twelve by a businessman to be a "gofer": someone who could make coffee and tidy desks without getting in the way or being seen by wealthy clients. In that first office he learned how to arrive with coffee or refreshments at just the right time, arrange papers according to level of importance, clean windows and floors and keep office supplies stocked, all without ever being seen. He could even slip past the security guard without being stopped or even noticed. 

From there he'd moved on to other offices, other businessmen, men whose "business" often strayed more than a few steps into the realm of the illegal. Wyatt didn't care. 

Then he'd moved to Gotham. 

Hard and cosmopolitan, Gotham didn't seem like a place for a thirteen year old boy to be wandering around, but Wyatt loved it. There were people to watch, shops to visit, shows to see. And, most importantly, lots of "businessmen" to choose from. Granted, these men were a little eccentric, but they paid as well as anyone else, and that was all that mattered. And they liked him-- at least, they liked his work-- and when they were inevitably rounded up by the authorities or some idiot in tights, Wyatt would slip away, unnoticed. He'd later visit his employer in prison or the asylum and receive a reccomendation, then move on to his next client. 

The first thing to do now that he was in Slade's employ, Wyatt mused as he gave himself a tour of the clocktower, was to figure out what kind of man Slade was. Judging by the location of the lair and the various electronics, Wyatt guessed Slade was an intelligent man, not one for rash actions. Cold and calculating, Slade would carefully plan out all of his actions beforehand with obsessive need for perfection. He preferred tea to coffee-- though the cupboards could use dusting, Wyatt thought with a sniff-- and took no sugar or cream. Also, common among men of great intellect, he was a bit of a slob. 

Wyatt found a secluded corner of the clocktower, away from Slade's mechanics, and set his bag down. Slade would be expecting him to bring tea. Wyatt had no such intention. It wasn't his job to bring things when they were expected-- he did things when they were needed, before Slade would have time to think about it. Besides, it was only seven in the morning, and Slade struck him as the sort of man who liked tea at ten forty-two. 

Wyatt unrolled his lightweight flannel blanket, then sat down on it and set about making his new home a little more livable. He had a clock, of course-- in an enclosed space like this it was impossible to know what time of day it was-- a spare set of clothes, and his most prized posession: a hand puppet. 

Laying limp in the messenger bag, it didn't look like much, but in Wyatt's hands (or rather, on them) it became alive. It's name was Goff, a striped, horned animal with lopsided eyes and a mouthful of crooked felt teeth. Wyatt had become interested in ventriloquism when he'd seen one of his employers do it, making his dummy seem so real that it was as if performer and prop were two different people. Wyatt practiced his skill in private until his performance was passable and purchased Goff in a gift shop. He enjoyed using his newfound talent to seem even more insubstantial, remaining completely still while he talked. What he enjoyed the most, however, was performing with Goff for small audiences on the street. Goff was weird and colorful and loud-- everything that he was not. In addition, performing earned enough money to live off of while Wyatt was travelling. 

Wyatt carefully folded Goff in a corner and smiled a little. He glanced at the clock, then stood and went to check the state of Slade's laundry. 


	3. Chapter Three

  
  


**Chapter Three**

Over the next week, Wyatt carefully followed Slade around the clocktower and learned all of his mannerisms, his moods, his routines. For all his anger and intelligence, Slade tended to remind Wyatt of his late grandfather: an extremely sharp old man who liked to think on his feet, puttering around his house muttering to himself and seldom bothering-- or even remembering-- to pick up after himself. Wyatt was kept busy picking up towels, arranging papers, and cleaning up after oil spills and broken (and often smashed) pieces of electronics. 

Rather than lose respect for Slade, in that first week Wyatt became extremely fond of Slade in a way that a nurse would become fond of a patient. He enjoyed sitting on top of the catwalk above Slade's bank of monitors and watching him interact with Cinderblock and Plasmus, or the Teen Titans. It was here that Slade really shone, using his great talent with words to herd his allies and enemies where he needed them, making sure that his perfectly crafted plans worked just the way they were meant to. 

The Teen Titans... 

Wyatt sat down under the rail of the catwalk and swung his legs over the edge, looking down at the monitor below him. One of the monitors was displaying a small image of the Titans while they thwarted a bank robbery; the rest were replaying old footage of Robin in action. Slade stood with his arms folded, staring up at the images. Wyatt sighed. Although in his line of business he was often on what people called the "wrong" side of the law, he usually didn't choose sides. The way he saw it, everyone was just doing their job: his clients stole for a living, the police stopped them for a living. Even walking freudian nightmares like the Batman did the things they did out of a sense of duty, or sometimes out of boredom. Wyatt knew there was no such thing as Good or Evil, or even, in most cases, right and wrong. Those were just words people made up to try and make sense of the world, make themselves feel better for doing the kinds of things they couldn't help doing. 

Humans were predatory animals, after all. 

But there was something about the Teen Titans-- Robin in particular-- that didn't sit well with Wyatt. He'd known Robin before, when he was still running about with the Batman, and then, things had seemed all right. He'd been a little surprised to find the acrobatic fashion victim here as well. What really bothered him was that he seemed to have a... fixation on Slade. 

What worried him more was that the feeling seemed to be mutual. 

Wyatt stood up and brushed himself off, then went off to make sure Slade's lair was presentable, as it seemed the Titans might be dropping in soon. What Slade did was his own business, of course, but this "apprentice" business worried him. It wasn't that he was jealous of all the attention Slade was dedicating to Robin; after all, half of Wyatt's job was to _not_ get paid attention to. And he certainly didn't want to become apprentice instead of Robin-- Wyatt had no desire to run around in armor punching things. 

He brooded over it over the next few days as Slade made cryptic preparations in a far corner of the clocktower. Wyatt didn't bother to find out what he was up to beyond noticing that Slade was wearing pencils down to nubs four times a day. Once in awhile he'd wander to the tiny refridgerator and make a mess, then go back to his work, muttering. 

Wyatt ran back and forth between the stove and Slade's desk, trying to make sure there were new pencils and a mug of tea waiting for him when he needed it. Slade was a man who was capable of going days without sleep, and did in the days leading up to the climax of his plan. By the third sleepless night, however, Wyatt was having trouble matching Slade's manic energy. He often caught himself dozing off leaning against a wall, and whenever he walked past his meager bed he longed to just lie down and catch a few hours of sleep. 

But no matter how tired he was, Wyatt knew that this was the time when Slade needed him most, and didn't allow himself any rest. Finally, one morning while Wyatt was standing listlessly on the catwalk trying to stay awake, Slade left the clocktower. Heaving a sigh of relief, Wyatt dragged himself to his bed and slumped down upon it, falling asleep almost instantly. 


End file.
